Big data system ready to handle fed intell, surveillance sensor data

An integrated system combining cloud and big data storage along with mobile computing is now available for government agencies that need to capture, store, process and distribute massive volumes of intelligence and surveillance sensor data.

Additionally, the YottaDrive delivers a cost per gigabyte more than 90 percent lower than what many federal agencies working with YottaStor are paying today, according to Mike Dillard, former chairman of the CIA Information Policy Board and executive director of YottaStor.

"Our customers' ability to acquire, exploit and store massive amounts of data is just emerging,” Dillard said. "This new challenge is fueled by the massive amounts of content being generated by new technologies like sensors, medical devices, and full-motion cameras as integral parts of the business process."

Web Object Scaler lets multisite, global organizations connect to and collaborate on data without the bottlenecks and overhead associated with traditional file access systems. The appliance is designed to support organizations that need to scale to more than an exabyte of global storage capacity and trillions of objects.

Web Object Scaler is used as the underlying global namespace that connects YottaDrive multipetabyte "Enterprise Thumb Drives" into a connected and global big data namespace. This breaks down data collaboration barriers between distributed government facilities and agencies, company officials said.

With performance that is also significantly higher than conventional file storage solutions, the YottaDrive architecture featuring Web Object Scaler appliances can capture, store and distribute any sensor data type and resolution to enable rapid decision-making at any scale, officials said.

"The big data era is not defined by the ability to store data, but by the ability to quickly extract actionable insight from that data," said Jeff Denworth, vice president of marketing at DDN.

The YottaDrive mobile computing and big data storage system is currently available in three configurations, 2.5, 5 or 10 petabytes, with pricing starting as low as 5 cents per gigabyte per month, officials said.

The combined solution is available through the NASA SEWP IV contract via YottaStor, a division of Alliance Technology Group.

The two companies are not the only ones addressing the federal government's big data storage and processing needs. Lockheed Martin and Cleversafe are developing a federal version of the Cleversafe Dispersed Compute Storage solution designed for the unique needs of federal government agencies handling massive amounts of data.